by Ana Calin
Gino stepped forward. “We chose to come with him. He wanted to take on this alone.”
“I will hear your report when I request it, no sooner,” the Viscount cut him off with a hiss that crawled up the walls and the men’s skin. They shifted, shuddered and whispered, bundling together behind Damian. Even Gino backed off. The entire exchange was kept well below a level where humans could pick it up, but for Upgrades’ enhanced hearing the words boomed.
“I’m surprised, Executioner,” the Viscount said royally. “You’ve often proven yourself a man above petty vengeances. Why jeopardize the plan for Hector Varlam now?”
Damian measured the shadow up and down, growing suspicious. “And what are you doing here?”
Damian knew the Viscount couldn’t have simply gotten wind of his actions and come to prevent them. He was one of the most powerful creatures alive, yes, but Damian was his chief of operations, and he was good at what he did. This encounter was a coincidence.
The Viscount said nothing. Damian’s eyes narrowed. “Leona Ignat?”
Again, the Viscount hesitated. Then he said, in an almost soothing voice, “If you are to take risks, Executioner,” – go to certain death, he meant—
Damian grinned bitterly at the thought.
“—then it has to be worth it. It has to save as many souls as possible.”
“With all due respect,” Damian slurred, “cut the crap. You were never opposed to sacrificing people when you had to. You’ve made your fair share of cruel decisions for the greater good. Why care about the gypsy girl now? What makes her special to you?”
The star-like eyes flickered. “She’s not special to me, Executioner. She’s special to BioDhrome. Not only Hector Varlam has an interest in her, you see. Their new project, the shadow creature, has also marked her. She’d make a fine weapon in the war against us and, to prevent her from turning into one, we need her on our side.”
Chapter Ten
I sat up and squinted through the darkness. My face burned and my head spun. I rubbed away the cobweb that clung to my eyelashes, and my sight cleared to make out a tall, broad-shouldered figure standing between the wooden posts that sustained the fringy canopy veils. He watched me with dangerous eyes.
Alarms went off in my head; I was certain Giant had managed to break in. But as vision adjusted I realized that this frame, although ominous, didn’t create the steroid-saturated impression Giant’s had. The shape of his chest was pleasant to the eye under the open upper buttons of his shirt, and his perfectly sculpted face was the face I loved. He was no intruder. He was Damian.
“Thank God you’re all right,” were the first words to fly off my lips as I got up to my knees on the bed. “What happened? How is Leona?”
“Safe.”
“Had she and Varlam gotten to—”
“I don’t think so.”
I frowned and tilted my head to the side. “What exactly did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything. The Viscount took over.”
“What? How come?”
But Damian wasn’t in the mood to talk. He unbuttoned his shirt, then he undid his belt and fly. I watched with rising eyebrows as he peeled his clothes off and dropped them on the floor, now standing naked and splendid before me in the moonlight. My eyes slid up and down that perfect body, over his broad shoulders, his titanium arms, his legs, his erection.
I licked my lips watching his muscles slither under his skin as he climbed onto bed. He flung the sides of my bathrobe open and breathed in sharply at the sight of my naked body under him. My nipples hardened. He plunged in a deep kiss, his tongue filling my mouth like an overriding wave, sensual, delighting. It drove me high with desire. My senses spiked, and my taste buds opened up.
I responded to his kiss and to his passion, my hands tangling in his long raven locks. He crushed my breasts under his chest, going down from my lips to my nipples with fervent kisses. Moist and pulsing, I kept his head on them, fingers knotting in his hair while he sucked and licked with a full tongue.
Wanting and panting, I tried to thrust up my hips to meet him when his knees parted my legs, but he gripped my hips to keep me down. My blood raced as his manhood rubbed on the wet flesh between my legs, and not being able to respond drove me crazy.
“Damian, make love to me,” I begged.
“We’re not protected yet.” His voice was thick with want, and I could care less about the consequences right now. My brain was in heat.
“Just take me, for the love of God,” I insisted, feverish. A delicious groan escaped from the back of his throat, the groan of a man turned on beyond belief.
He penetrated me slowly with his solid shaft, his groan so animalistic as he filled me that it made me mighty horny, my nails breaking on the granite sinews of his back. I doubted that he was entirely made of flesh, but my wits switched off. Nothing mattered besides how much I loved him, and how much I sensed he wanted me. Again, I tried to move my hips but I was trapped beneath him.
“Don’t,” he whispered. “I won’t be able to hold it.”
My heart swelled at the words. I couldn’t control a naughty inner grin.
Draught blew through the canopy from the leaky window frames, inflating the veils. Damian’s features glowed in the moonlight, lips pressed together, tensed jaw, pale green eyes as if eating me alive.
He ground into me harder and harder, wild, like a man convinced this was his last time. With no control, at the mercy of his moves, I couldn’t hold it anymore and I came, my body arching in waves of pleasure as I clasped his adamantine shoulders and cried out.
The moment my lids lifted in the aftermath of climax, I found Damian’s eyes on my face, those eyes that could’ve literally been a devil’s. He thrust harder, building up. Moments later, he pulled out and came on my lower belly, throwing his head back and flexing, groaning and looking magnificent. He held his shaft in his hand, his seed splashing warm on my skin.
I stared at him, fascinated, as he dropped heavily by my side. He took a few moments with his eyes up at the ceiling, and I imagined that, like me, he felt overwhelmed by the depth this was taking. Our desire seemed to grow rather than quench every time we made love.
Without a word, he turned me around gently, peeled the bathrobe off my arms in the process, and draped a protective arm around my middle. It made me feel small and fragile in a sexy way. I nestled the back of my head against his chest, my cheek on the pillow, breathing in his scent of young wood, the juice of his pleasure trickling from my lower belly onto the sheets. We lay completely naked together, skin on skin, his huge body spooning me.
It was without question the best moment of my life, a feeling of great joy flooding my entire body. That moment as I lay listening to the sound of draught, waves, and Damian’s slowing breath, everything was perfect, eternity palpable, and happiness a reality.
I almost fell asleep with this feeling and a smile on my face, but then something stirred. Something big, and still growing and hardening against my backside. Less than half an hour after we’d made love, Damian Novac was ready to take me again.
He began grinding against my buttocks, his arm leaving my waist and caressing its way upward. He nuzzled my earlobe and my neck while his passion grew, his kneading of my breasts possessive.
I wanted to turn and face him, but his chest kept firm on my back. His hand slipped between my legs to find me wet for him, while his stony manhood slid forth and back in the slick of my arousal without penetrating me.
“I shouldn’t,” he rasped in my ear. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to pull out on time again.”
He breathed heavily, and I sensed he was losing it. He wanted to take me like a wild animal.
“Good Lord, I want you so bad.” He glided deep inside me, letting his tongue run up the side of my neck like a feral licking the blood off its prey. I cried as he filled me, whimpering with pleasure and pain as he made way. Once he sensed I became comfortable, he thrust hard, his groans vibrant.
On his way to climax, he flashed over my sweet spot again and again and again, causing me to build up so strongly that I exploded in spasms, sweating, screaming, and clawing the sheets.
Damian grabbed my hair like he was riding his mare, and pulled my head back, heightening my pleasure. After my quaking and moaning had stilled, he retreated, and pushed just the tip of his shaft between the cheeks of my backside. I shrieked in panic rather than pain, but he didn’t try to go in any deeper. He came, convulsing and growling deep bass.
“Aw, woman, I’ll die for you. I’ll die for you.” His big hands sought my breasts and kneaded lovingly, pressing my back to his chest that was now covered with sweat. I burned with desire to turn and lick the wet film off his skin. I knew it hadn’t been the effort that had caused it, but the gratification he found in my body, the intensity of pleasure I gave him, and this awareness made the sensation of bliss resurge in my chest.
Damian turned me around so that we faced each other, his crystal stare profound and full of emotion. His fingers tangled with mine as he stretched me beneath him on the bed, gently as if to make up for his savagery.
He kept his weight on his elbows, and our hands knotted together above my head, while his eyes wandered all over my face. He loomed big and inhumanly handsome over me, his sculptured mouth closer and closer. He pressed it on my lips, parted them, and his tongue invaded me with as much force as his erection had before. His kiss was long, possessive, and his shaft twitched against my inner thigh. No way! No one can be this insatiable! But he grew to his full, dangerous size again so fast that I panicked.
A look into my eyes was enough for Damian to understand that his reaction scared the hell out of me. I was exhausted, inside I was sore, and my hips would surely bruise until morning. The intensity had sucked away all that I had to give, while he seemed to never run out of stamina. I had no idea how this was even physically possible. He’d come only moments before, with a fury that would’ve exhausted anyone.
Damian seemed to read my thoughts. He pressed his lips together and his jaw rippled. He got off me and off the bed, the mattress springing up swiftly as if a boulder had been lifted off it. I was suddenly cold.
I sat up and braced myself, staring at his V-shaped back in the moonlight. I felt completely drained, but my heart still fluttered at every sight of this antihero whom I found so easy to love.
“Tiberius was right,” he said. “I am dangerous to you.”
I frowned. “Why do you say that now?”
He picked up his clothes and began getting dressed. I couldn’t help feeling ditched.
“What are you doing?”
“We can’t share a bed, you and I,” he said. “We’ll keep it to visits from now on.”
Anger surged inside of me. “You mean you’ll walk in, do me, and leave, right?”
Damian’s back stiffened. His upper body was still naked, raven hair loose down to his shoulders.
“It won’t be like that.”
“How will it be then?” I couldn’t keep the anger and despair out of my voice.
Damian threw his shirt on the armchair, spun round, and walked to me, eyes bright and tormented. When he stopped between the canopy posts, I saw the tension in all his features. He was still fighting himself.
“You don’t understand, woman. With every time I take you I want you more. You’re a drug to me.”
He cupped my cheek, bringing his face closer and pushing me again on my back. A wave of anxiety rippled through me.
“With the women before you it was no more than a function of the body which I used when I had to,” he said through his teeth. “I could control ejaculation, and I felt no pleasure when it came. Yes, you heard that right. I was unable to feel orgasm. I was a strange medical case, if you will. But with you I can barely hold it, and the pleasure is through the damn roof.”
I stared at him. Did I get that right?
His features hardened, and his eyes burned. He opened his fly with one hand, which he then slipped under my nape. The other hand went under my thigh, trapping me under his statuesque body.
“I never wanted anyone before, Alice. Before you desire was nothing but an empty word for a feeling I’d never felt. But that night at the dorms, when you talked to me, touched me …”
His manhood, as hard as it had left me, pressed against the folds between my legs.
“Ah, Alice, how I desired to feel you wrapped around me. How I dreamed of the texture of your body on the inside. Soon I was thinking about it so intensely that I had to jerk off thinking of you to relieve some of the pressure in my groin. It was then that I felt it for the first time. Pleasure. Climax. I had no idea such sensations were possible for me.”
His words got me drunk, and I moaned at the mere sound of them. My legs opened of their own accord to welcome him. Damian eased himself into me and ground slowly, enjoying every fiber of my inside. He penetrated deep and right to the spot, growing forceful.
I heard myself approve, “Yes, Damian, yes,” as he led me higher toward the peak.
He gave me an orgasm that shook me so hard it cast my brain in vertigo. My hands trapped in his above my head, I abandoned myself to his vigorous thrusts until he pulled out and poured himself on my thigh, kissing me passionately. This time he didn’t indulge in petting for too long, though. He retreated, while I followed, and kept our mouths locked together until he clasped my shoulders and stood.
I propped myself on my elbows and watched him straighten up, looking down at me, the fervor we’d just shared still burning in his crystal stare. He took in the sight of me, eyes gliding up and down my body.
“Every time we do this I’m losing it more, Alice,” he said. “It’s pure insanity. If we share a bed, I’m afraid –” His voice broke. He turned on his heel, hiding his face from me.
He walked over to the fireplace, threw more wood over the weak ember, and spurred the flames.
“Your father was right,” he repeated. “I am dangerous to you.”
He slammed the door behind him, and the fire crackled to life. I lay there on my elbows for a while, blinking rapidly as if that could help clear my head. I was still high on Damian’s love, and my flesh still trembled from the way he’d taken me. Exhausted and unable to form one coherent thought, I dropped back on the bed that smelled of our intimacy, and fell into deep sleep.
Chapter Eleven
I emerged from the shower feeling sore, barely able to walk, and I saw the bruises on my hips in the mirror. All my muscles ached, and I had difficulty getting dressed.
Holding to the wooden banister, I managed to walk down the stairs. I was dressed in black leggings and a green blouse that came too tight on my waist and over my buttocks like a mini skirt, true to the shape of my body. The boots had a bit of heel.
I walked into the dining room eager to see Damian, but found Krista standing by the table where breakfast waited. Giving course to an inviting motion of her hand, I sat down and looked around, a little disconcerted.
“He’s not coming,” she said. “He left very early today for a meeting with the Cleric. Costin will be driving you to meet him after you’ve had your breakfast.” She motioned with her chin in the direction of a big guy in a black suit who stood by the main entrance that was visible through the open double doors.
This was the same man who’d held me back and said reassuring words to me back at Dr. Barbu’s. He blended in so well with the dark walls, that I hadn’t noticed him, even though he faced the very stairs I’d come down. But then again, I’d been too focused on my cramping steps.
Krista took her time inspecting my face. I sensed her interest in me, her intrigue. No dislike this time.
“Would you care to join me?” I invited her, motioning to the food and coffee.
“Oh, no. I have to return to my duties.”
“I’m sure they can wait.”
“Mr. Novac wouldn’t like it.”
“Why would he mind?”
“It’s not that he’d mind. But
you’re supposed to meet him in half an hour. You need to hurry and eat, and my company would only cause delay.”
Krista glanced in the direction of Costin, who’d walked into the dining room, making me aware of the pressing time. I took a few bites of the scrambled eggs and gulped down the coffee, then grabbed my bag.
Costin walked with me to the basement. We got in the Maserati and drove out of the chilly garage into the first sunny spring day I saw that year. A few streets up the peninsula, where people strolled around bathing their faces in the sun and spring feelings, Costin let down the windows. It gave me a feeling of endlessness and hope, heightened by the lukewarm draught on my face, but as we approached the shipyard, he rolled the dark windows back up.
Damian waited in the underground parking lot of the apartment building where everybody thought he lived, leaning against the hood of his ‘98 BMW. He was dressed in a white V-neck that caressed his muscular shape, jeans and boots, arms folded across his chest. I couldn’t refrain from staring. This magnificent beast had been inside of me; he’d possessed me completely and told me he loved me.
The moment we came face to face, he wrapped his concrete arms around me and kissed me right in front of Costin. When our lips parted, the poor man was looking everywhere around the place, only not at us.
“Why didn’t you pick me up yourself after the meeting with the Cleric?” I asked, stroking Damian’s strong jaw.
“In broad daylight and with BioDhrome’s watch on me re-doubled, I wouldn’t have made it to the villa undetected. This way, they’ll think I picked you up from the apartment.”
He held the car door for me, and we started off on our way to campus.
“The Viscount wants you to talk to Leona Ignat,” he said. “She won’t listen to anyone else, Varlam has her paranoid and suspicious of her own shadow.”
